Due to increasing longevity, dementia-based illness is becoming the main global health-related burden of medical budgets and is a recognised stressor of carers/families of the affected. Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents the most prevalent neurodegenerative pathology and the identification of therapeutic and improved diagnostic methods for patient treatment and screening are constantly being sought. Although psychometric tests such as the mini-mental state exam are generally good predictors of AD, post-mortem examination remains the only unequivocal method of Alzheimer's diagnosis. Loss of memory is a common phenomenon amongst the aged. In the event where severe memory loss is the predominant symptom this condition is termed mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and is often seen as a very early stage of AD. At this stage treatment may be more efficacious than later on. The conversion rate of patients with MCI to clinical AD is described to be 50% within 3 years (Karas et al 2008). The use of protein biomarkers in diagnostic medicine is increasing. Identification of protein biomarkers of AD, especially those present in readily accessible biological fluids such as blood and urine, represents a desirable and effective alternative to current diagnostic methods. Tropomyosin is a fibrous molecule that consists of two α-helices. It is widely distributed in all cell types, where it regulates the shortening of the muscle filaments actin and myosin. In mammals, differential splicing of four highly conserved genes can give rise to more than 40 isoforms (Schevzov et al. 2005). Furthermore, each isoform can be subject to various degrees of post-translational modification, including phosphorylation and glycosylation. Two of the most common analytical techniques used in protein separation and identification are two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-D DIGE) and 2D Western blot. EP2293075, using 2-D DIGE to identify possible biomarkers of AD in platelet samples, highlighted two tropomyosin isoforms assigned to the Swissprot/Uniprot Accession Number P07951 and NCBI/Genbank accession numbers BAB14554/AK023385.